I am a 50 yr old female living in Mumbai India, training since Sept for the full Marathon to be held on Jan 20 2008. I did the Half Marathon last year and am a regular gym goer. Would appreciate yr reply to the following queries:

1)My Max HR (calculated by Millet et all method) is 174.5. My resting HR is 50-55. On Nov 18 when I ran 18miles, (the longest run so far in my training),for the first half I was running continously at HR 160(thats 90%) and the latter half at HR 165-170 (thats 95-98%). I know this is high but I was trying to improve my speed. Inspite of running at high heart rate it took me 4 hours to finish 18miles. At this pace it will take me 6 hours of running in the heat to complete marathon. If I run at slower HR, it will take me even longer.Please advise at what HR I should be doing long runs? How can I improve speed during training without running risk of injury?

2)Below is a summary of distance I have run. I have been doing a long run every 2 weeks (not weekly)to avoid risk of injury as my knee is prone to pain,(though so far I havent had any problem).I have also stated distance I plan to run in the next few weeks.Pls advise if I should make changes.(I am travelling from Dec 23-Jan 3 during which time I shall not be training).

Oct 28 - 15.5miles 3hrs 26 min
Nov 4 - 13 miles 3hrs
Nov 18- 18 miles 4 hrs
Nov 25- 5.6 miles 1hr 07min.......now I plan to run as follows

Nov Fri 30 7.5miles
(Sun Dec2travelling)
Dec 9 20miles
Dec 16 1 6miles
Dec Fri21 or 22 22-23miles
Dec 30 rest(travelling)
Jan 6 9miles
Jan 13 rest
jan 20 Marathon

3) I have been resting for 2 days of the week(Mon and Sat), training for 5 days( 1 day eplitical/cycle, 1 day weight training or Vibro, 2 days short run of 3 miles and 1 day long run). Should I make any changes like increasing short run distance? Am I under or over training?Is there anything I can do to improve my speed without risking knee pain?

Pls post yr repy or email me phoenixphoenix001@gmail.com


Cheers,
sonz

Hi, if I read your post correctly, your really not running enough for marathon training. Two short runs and one long run per week doesn't cut it. . Also you may want to rethink your remaining long runs especially if you have knee problems. If you do one 20 miler about a month before the race that will be enough for the long runs. The changes that I suggest are to eliminate the 22 miler, just do a 20 miler and try to do at least a couple 8 to 10 mile runs each week from now until the week before the marathon. The week before just do very light running you can only mess yourself up by trying to "cram". Don't walk around a lot the day before the race, you'll have dead legs. Remember just take your time, your just trying to finish the first one with no major problems. Good luck